If A Lark Could Sing
by Reincarnated Poet
Summary: Stolen from her homeland, beaten for the stubborn pride so often found in her people and sold into the arena for her insolence, Zarana has forgotten all of herself, including her name. Fifteen years spent in an arena begging death until she is bought by a Roman Commander, called home to bow to the Pope's power. Wolf Moon almost sequel.
1. A Caged Bird

**AN:** I'm not sure who all will read and enjoy this piece. Mostly, I wrote it because Lark wouldn't stop appearing in other pieces I was writing. I'd be working along on something and realize that the main character had done something she'd have done, not something they'd have done. I even wrote in a side character that was essentially her into another fandom. So, I've taken the signs from the muses and am giving her her story. May the prickly war-bitch leave me in peace when this is done. Lykopis, Izi, Kati and Alda are all from Wolf Moon. It is HIGHLY recommended you read that first.

 **Chapter One: A Caged Bird**

She'd been awake, watching her little sister sleeping when the first cries started. Harsh and keening, they'd woken a fear in her that was deeper than anything she'd ever felt.

"Brazi, wake up," she whispered, shaking her brother awake and pushing their sister into his arms. He was wide eyed, little older than eight summers, and more afraid of the Romans than any fireside story. "Go, take her to mother, and hide."

She slipped out the front door of their home, light eyes taking in the torches that lit bronze shields and made long Roman faces seem like memories from a nightmare.

"Zarana!" A familiar voice cut through the noise, and she turned, finding her friend there, eyes wide with terror. "The Romans come, Zarana. They took my brother; they took Kisib!" Zarana let the smaller woman wrap herself around her chest, tucked safely under her arms. Zarana shushed her as she cried. "They killed Adda," she whispered, voice broken.

"Shhh." Zarana coaxed her into silence, pulling her back into the home. "In the back. My Ana is there, she will take you." Her friend took a few steps into the darkness, knowing the home well enough even in complete black to know her way. She paused.

"Where are you going?" she asked, even as she took another few steps. "Zarana, come with me." The desperation to her tone told Zarana that she was only trying, one last time. It was an old fight between them. Mare was a soft woman, with little courage and less strength. Over the years they'd known each other, Zarana had heard that tone time and time again.

"I've got to find someone." She dismissed the thought of retreat. "I've got to-"

A sharp cry sounded outside, and a roar took up, one that was as familiar as her own name. The war cry of her people thundered, rising in voices that cracked with youth or with age. In that moment, as their combined rage swelled through her, she new every fear that had ever been known.

Her people were old, most bent with age with sons and daughters too young to know warfare. Zarana was one of the eldest at just seventeen summers. The Romans that rode them down were strong, able bodied, and single minded in their wrath.

She froze in the door, the scenes before her eyes passing almost as if unseen. Who could see, even if they'd eyes? Old blood was spilled and young blood was stolen, chained together, some too young to even stand. The life was forced out of the village of the dead.

"Girl!" a voice shouted at her, and she wasn't sure when she'd started hearing again. "Out of there, come now!" He shouted, sword in hand, face spattered with blood. His other hand gripped hard at her bicep, pulling her forward, where she stumbled in the dirt to his feet. Another went into the home, shouting something that she simply couldn't hear .

He reappeared in a moment, face twisted in anger. "There's someone in a cellar. They refuse to come out." That caught in her mind, and satisfaction curled up in her belly. Good, she thought. They'd be safe in the cellar.

"Burn them out," a man said from behind, her and she turned, something hard and unyielding growing in her like a great wave.

"No!" she screamed, launching herself at the man, who still wore his high-maned helmet. A long sword shone in his hand, decorated in gems and blood. The threat of it did not stop her. She managed to scrape her nails down one side of his face, over an eye and down the cheek before he pushed her back, hard into the dirt, a boot against her chest.

"Burn it!" he shouted, one hand covering his ruined eye as he screamed. Blood and viscous jelly spilled out between his fingers. "Burn it all!"

"No!" She was screaming, trying to dislodge the foot from her chest, but the pressure made it hard to breath. He was a heavy man, but her anger was a great thing. She screamed slurs she didn't know her tongue knew. In the end, he was heavier than her anger.

"You'll watch them die, girl," he said, pressing down harder with his foot and glaring down at her out of one eye. Breath was lost ot her, and her vision spotted as a torch was thrown into the old, wooden home. It caught quickly, burning up and crackling. Zarana tried to pretend that the high screams were from the wood, the blankets inside, anything but what she knew was the truth.

She lay there, lip and breathing in the smoke of the bodies of her family as the Roman's foot finally came off her chest. Someone was speaking to the three men around her, someone with a firm voice, demanding respect and obedience. As the keening cries stopped, she closed her eyes against all else that might come and vowed she would show him neither.

"This dark night, this dark night," she sang weakly, voice thick with the smoke and choked with tears. The dirge of her family was heavy in her mind. Who would sing them all to the other land, now? "With fire and sleet and candlelight. If from here away you've passed, may this song be your very last. If gone you be from family, I bid your soul be wise and free."

The words caught in her throat. She couldn't make the next lines come, anger and fear both at and for herself welled up in her chest. If she couldn't sing them away then would their souls walk the earth forever, as the old ones said?

"What's it matter?" The man with the ruined eye shouted, shaking her from that place beyond recognition. "Kill the bitch and let it be the end."

"My wife asked for a new present from the savage lands. She's begged me for a new maid that can sing," another said, the one who's voice brooked no argument. "I'll give her the pretty and be done with it. Besides, the bitch is cold enough when I'm home. Maybe a toy will warm her frozen cunt. Tie her with the rest."

The words were heard, but they meant nothing to her as she was bound, hands and feet, and forced to walk with the children behind the Roman horses. A few, barely old enough to walk, stumbled and fell time and time again before Zarana turned, crouched low and let one of them climb onto her back and another up through her arms.

It did not matter that her bare feet bled or that the added weight of a child in her arms caused the ropes to cut her wrists deeply. The world held no pain, no pain true enough to touch her again.

 **-A Caged Bird-**

They stood her up on a small pedestal, where she stayed for several hours as they scrubbed her skin with a course brush and combed her hair with a shell-toothed claw. The weight of her heart kept her rooted here, staring sightless at the wall. Her mistress stood there, she knew, somewhere between her eyes and the wall, but she couldn't see her.

Zarana had been presented that morning by Batarius, a commander in the Roman legions. His wife, Maggiora had been ecstatic, demanding she sing on the spot. Covered in blood and soot and filth, Batarius had insisted Maggiora let her first be bathed, if only to spare their noses her smell.

A smell she would welcome back over the scent of perfumed water and a sand-like mess they scrubbed into her skin until it was bright pink and smelled of flowers. The callouses on her hands were shaved off, the same as those on her feet, and she was wrapped in a gossamer pale yellow gown, the same gown that all the other house slaves wore. They twisted her hair up into tight curling pieces and settled little golden flowers in her hair.

"They're to indicate your station as the lady's new maid," one of the young slaves explained, petting the little golden flowers with envy. "Do not lose them, or the mistress will be angry."

Zarana had nodded but her jaw stayed shut, as it had been since that day so many weeks ago, in her village.

"You will call me Domina," Maggoria said, standing in front of Zarana with her hands clasped and an unholy smile on her lips. "It is my will that you will see to, my every whim and in the time that you serve me, should I be pleased, you will be rewarded." She paused, taking in the other house slaves, though none as highly elevated as Zarana, with her little golden flowers. "I freed my personal maid last summer. She'd fallen in love and wanted the chance to raise a family. I was good to her, as I will be to you, if you provide me with appropriate service. She was beside me twenty years, since she was a child. If you serve me so, perhaps you will earn your freedom."

Zarana nodded, recognizing the words, what they'd mean.

"I give you the mark of my ladies, Zai." The woman nodded to someone behind her, and blinding pain ignited into her shoulder. She screamed, the sound echoing in her own ears, and in the next moment, it had lessened. Twisting to see, there, on her back, was the mark of a bird, rising over the sea. The symbol was maddening, a bird, the most free of all creatures, spreading wing and taking off over water, where man cannot walk.

Her family would never know such freedom. She would never know such freedom.

Something hardened in her as she stared at the ruined skin. It was a wicked thing that rose in her, along her tongue and in her eyes and through her spine. It was the same thing that had risen up and let her gouge the eye from a Roman soldier. She straightened on the pedestal, set her jaw against any future pain, and resolved to do nothing this woman asked of her.

"Thank your Domina," the little slave girl whispered, voice urgent at her elbow.

"No," Zarana said, relishing in the way the woman's smile slipped away.

"What?" Maggoria said, taking a step forward and accepting a thin rod from one of the house guards. Zarana eyed the weapon, knew the pain that it could cause, knew that freedom lay in her tongue.

She parted her lips, rolled her voice against her throat, and screamed.

"Rus!"

The lash fell across her arms, legs, against her stomach and flanks. She stood, blood dripping off of her fingers and down along her legs to the floor below. She felt a weakness in her limbs, a new type of agony that she'd never before known, and as the lash came down again against her cheek, she laughed.

Someone stopped Maggoria's arm not long later, and Zarana could hear the commander's voice chastising the woman.

"If you damage her face, we'll get nothing at slave market," he hissed, eyeing the mess that his wife had made. "Scarred like that, we won't get the gold it cost to bring her here."

"I don't want her sold," Margorria hissed, turning her eyes toward Zarana. "I will get my lark to sing for me, like she sang for you on the battlefield."

 **-A Caged Bird-**

"Out of my sight! I want that creature gone!" Maggoria was in rare form, her dress torn down the side, blood coloring the pale purple. Zarana stood a few paces off, her delicate yellow dress stained with blood that dripped off of the cheese knife in her hand. She'd been meant to cut up Marggoria's food. The knife had slipped nearly six feet. She felt the warmth of blood sliding between her fingers, knew it's weight for the first time.

"Shall I call the-" It was a question that tired all of them. For three weeks, the house guard had been asking if they should call the slave merchant. Ship her away, make her someone else's problem. Zarana both craved that and willed it not to happen. She'd been taken for Marggoria. She owned the woman a debt, after all, a debt that was yet to be paid. She'd started already, with the blood under her fingernails. It would be a pity not to finish.

"No!" Maggoria roared, hand clamping down on the knife wound at her side viciously. "Fetch me a doctor, and lock her in chains. I'll deal with her tonight." Zarana didn't fight the two house guards that gripped her elbows and drug her from the room, twisting her wrists behind her and making her drop the knife to the floor with a wet clatter. They did not take her from her home. They did not harm her, other than what was ordered.

She stared impassively out of the cell beneath the estate as the door shut, the metal bars sealing her inside. She sat in the dirt at the far wall, a small torch in the hallway her only light. In time, that too would burn into nothingness as it had for the last three nights. She found the discomfort of the cell more comforting than the creature delicacies of her slave quarters, beside Maggoria's own. The Roman woman had attempted to buy her behavior, her good service, her tongue and her well wishes.

She'd purchased nothing with her blood or her coin.

There were others in the cells beneath the estate. Those that would not obey were forced there, among those that were kept for their willful disobedience, their refusal to submit, to lay down and die. She heard their shouts the first time she was lead down the hall. The guards had placed her between them, shielding her with their bodies, almost as if they were trying to protect her. She'd peered into the cages, seen the men there that gave pause and took her measure as she passed.

She was found wanting that first day. That night, she'd loosed her throat and sang to them the dirge of her family, the last words sang to their souls in case the next night they were no longer in their cells. Some of them shouted at first, demanding her silence. As the night passed, and they listened to her words, their outrage faded. Now, as she sat in silence, they called to her.

"Ey, Lark!"

"Sing's t'sleep, girl!"

"What'cha do, girl? Covered in blood."

They'd taken to calling her girl or Lark since that first night, and she'd have lied if she said it wasn't settling. Maggoria called her a bastardization of her real name. The other slaves mimed their mistress, their domina. The word made her sick. A woman with little skill and little beauty and even less compassion, and she coveted all that was as she wasn't.

It was why the Domina cried for her words, her voice. The woman would never hear it, but she would hear of it. She would hear the guards whisper about it during the day, how the silent slave would sing out for the gladiators at night, once their cells were closed. She would hear and covet and the lash would fall for it.

She would covet for the rest of her life.

 **-A Caged Bird-**

The last fell for a final time, striping her face and letting blood run from a cut eyebrow down across the angle of her jaw. She'd fallen to her knees ten blows prior, no longer able to stand. Maggoria had given up wielding the weapon herself and had called one of the slaves beneath the manor, one of the gladiators, to do it for her. His blows might have stripped flesh far more deeply, but they were struck with far more kindness.

She knelt in her own blood as Maggoria stalked around her, face scrunched up in disdain and frustration.

"Take her," Maggoria said firmly. "Take her to one of the gladiator cells. At least someone should get enjoyment from her." Zarana did not flinch. She did not smile or cry. The threat had been coming for days now. Be of use, give Maggoria what she wanted, or there would be more brutal punishment than a lash.

The guards were delicate with her as they pulled her from the ground, supported her down the hall and stairs, through the underground tunnels that made up the cells. It was four gladiators to a cell, and in the darkness, Zarana did not know whose they stopped at, but the door opened, she was left on the ground, and soon enough, their training for the day would cease. They would return to find their gift from their Domina.

She wondered if rape would be as painful as listening to her family's dying screams.

In the tunnel, as the last of the sunlight filtered in from a high window and the steps of the gladiators sounded on the stone steps, she sang. She sang for a little girl that had grown up on a wind swept plain. For her smile and her courage, her strength and her pride. She sang for that girl's family and friends, for the dead and carrion. She sang even as the guards opened the gate, let in four men, and locked it behind them.

As the night drew on, and they settled down to the dirt in their sleeping spots, Zarana sang on, propped up against the wall. She closed her eyes, forcing the last of that girl's tears from her eyes. She forced the final lines to the dirge past her teeth, lines that she hadn't allowed herself to sing since she'd been unable that day outside of her home.

It was fitting, after all. The final words of their family's dirge for the final member of their family. Zarana lay in the cell that night afraid of men that had not touched her, but it would be Lark that woke the next day, stronger and untouchable.


	2. The Building of a Nest

**AN:** It might be helpful to know some of the terminology here in. There were many named classes of gladiator in Rome. The ones here in are: Retiarius - a man who fought with a net and a trident. Cestus - a man who fought with gauntlet type hand covers with spikes protruding. Dimachaerus - a man who fought with no shield but two swords. Bustularius - a man that was charged with putting other men to death in the arena, often times an executioner of prisoners. Thraex - a man that fought in the Thracian style, with a small shield and a curved blade.

 **Chapter Two: The Building of a Nest**

"Eh, Lark, tha's a pretty little shiner you got there," Netrius said, watching her as she paced back and forth in the cell, fists clenched at her sides. It had been three months since Maggoria had first locked her into this cell, and her cellmates had grown more and more amused of her agitation and her wounds. Today had gone well, and Lark had only been punished for her defiance and not for injuring or attempting to injure her Domina.

"Pretty decoration for a pretty little bird," Cetius said. Cetius was her least favorite of the four. He was a retiarius, and he often joked about catching the bird in his net. It made her uneasy, but he never acted. Either he feared her wrath, the loss of her song at night or the retribution the other three would take. Netrius, Patrion and Aodhan were as close to her as any would be again, she was sure.

Netrius had been a Roman man, charged with the death of a merchant and cast into the slave ranks at a delicate sixteen years of age. He'd since spent ten fighting the style of the Cestus, with his big hands. His spiked gloves were deadly, and he could take a brutal beating before he could no longer fight. He was a cold man, but he was fair. That was all Lark care for anymore.

Patrion had been taken as an infant, one of the Gaul children taken in times of war, and he was dark haired and eyed with skin like leather and a smile that made the crowds roar. The crowd loved his twin swords, the complete unafraid nature of the Dimachaerus, who bore no shield into battle and only attacked, forcing his opponent to the wall with the sharp edges of death. He was the first to tell Lark that she'd done the right thing in abandoning her old name and encouraged her to forget it as she forgot pain. He'd know, he always said. He'd not been born Patrion. The crowd had given him that name, just as the gladiators had given her hers.

Aodhan was the eldest among them, and the oddity of the gladiator games. A Gaelic Bustularius that screamed in pain as he ended the lives of nearly naked men, sentenced to death for some crime or another, or more likely that not, the amusement of the crowd. Aodhan had been taken from a ship wreck off of some coast or another, and he'd found himself so deep in drink that one night he'd taken the advances of a Roman courtesan seriously. He'd been put in the arena for a drunken kiss and a handful of backside. He was loud and bold and god help her, she nearly liked his constant yammering.

"Fuck yourself, Cetius," she said from behind clenched teeth.

"Why don't you get yourself sold?" Patrion asked. "Slit the bitch's throat next time they put you to service. Make it real simple."

"I don't know how," Lark said, turning toward the wall and resting her head against the cool stone. She laid her knuckles against the wall, as if she could absorb its strength through her skin. The roar of laughter behind her was nearly deafening, and she glared darkly at them over her shoulder.

"You're in a gladiator's den, girl," Aodhan said, standing up with a stretch and a scratch at his bare chest. "Never a better place to learn."

 **-The Building of a Nest-**

Lark swore under her breath and dodged Netrius's heavy arm, slipping closer to him and hitting him along the back, where the ribs met the spine, as she'd been taught. He grunted in pain but twisted, catching her with the back of his elbow against her temple. Her vision darkened for a flash, and within that time, she was against the wall, the Cestus's big hands wrapped around her throat.

"Do something, girl!" Aodhan commanded, standing a few feet away, leaning in the corner. He'd been her teacher for the better part of four months, and each night that she was not too damaged, they played at war in their cell until the small hours, when she sang them to sleep with bruised ribs.

"Do...what..." she managed to say with what little breath was in her lungs.

"Be a woman!" Patrion said, laughter in his voice. "Your sex is as slippery as an eel and twice as vicious." Lark did not know if eels were either slippery or vicious, and with what she'd learned of Patrion's boastful statements in the last few months, it was most likely half false.

Except he had a point, and in a flash, her knee was up in the delicate flesh between his knees, and Netrius was doubled over.

"Gods, I'll piss blood for a week," he groaned, taking stuttering steps backward. Lark watched him with a grim sense of satisfaction.

"Y'done girl?" Aodhan asked. He pushed off of the wall, taking two great steps forward and planting his foot in Netrius's backside, forcing the man forward to the ground. "Yer small. Use what you've got!" Spittle flew off of his lips, face turning red. "I'll not have y'die because you didn't know to press!"

"I know to press," she said, rubbing at her bruised throat. "He was beaten."

"A man isn't beaten until his heart ceases to beat," Patrion said, standing and stepping over Cetius, who refused to participate in their nightly skirmishes. "In the arena-"

"I'm not in the arena!" Lark paced forward, anger carrying her. She stepped over Netrius, still in the dirt and rubbing his balls delicately. "You go to the arena every morning. You!" She lashed out with a fist that was easily read and caught by the old Gaelic man. He pulled her forward, and that she expected, using his momentum and bringing her palm up where his sternum met his belly, forcing the air from his lungs. She twisted away, under his arm and jumped as she thrust her elbow backward, into the space between his shoulder blades.

Aodhan fell to his knees, huffing to breathe.

"You should be," Patrion said, smile on his lips. "Can you see our Lark as a gladiatorix?"

"I'd like the bird to fly into my net in the arena," Cetius said, speaking for the first time since their lessons had started.

"She's not a Bustularius, Cetius. We'll leave your death to Aodhan," Netrius said, finally done mourning the damage to his balls. "S'a good tactic, if you can't do better, girl. Next time, damage somethin' I can do without. Eyes for example." Lark smiled at that, relaxing as the three men slowly fell into laughter.

Weeks passed, and each day Lark faced Maggoria from across a room, the woman taking to standing back and watching her guards do her bidding. It was a pity, the woman's arms were starting to show definition from wielding the lash. Anymore, a young man lay on her chaise with her. Blonde haired and staring uncomfortably at the scene that was made in front of him, sometimes for him, the man was not Roman. Gaul he was not. Gaelic was out of the question.

"Why not just sell her?" he asked one day. His cadence made Lark freeze as another blow came down. She did not feel the sting of the whip. All she felt was the reverberation in her ears. Sarmatian. She stared at him, squared her jaw and set her teeth as Maggoria smiled sweetly at him and accepted a kiss from his lips. He was still a boy, a year younger than she, and there he sat, enjoying the comforts of Rome and the warmth of her women.

As the next blow came, something in her that had been rising for months broke free.

She was on her feet, hands slicked with her own blood and feet sliding against the floor. The guard was freed of his whip with a neat little twist of his arm and a push to the small of his back to topple him forward. The lash came down twice before she was tackled from behind, the weapon skittering across the floor where it spun at Maggoria's feet.

"Rus!" she screamed as she was hauled to her feet, the hands on her more firm. Blood dripped down Maggoria's shoulder, too far from the neck to have done any real damage. The boy held a hand to his abdomen, though his eyes were wide with shock more than pain. "Rus!" she screamed again. "You bastard traitor! Kill me, or I'll kill you!"

"Sell her, love. Sell her before she causes you more pain." The man was whispering to Maggoria as they pulled her, kicking and screaming, toward the door.

"Take her to arena. If she wants to fight, let her."

As she was pulled down to the cells for the last time, thrown bodily in and left there, her ears still did not know the words that Maggoria had said. Her heart did though, and as she stilled against the wall, the organ soared.

Freedom of the arena. She'd heard the words so many times from Netrius and Aodhan.

"What'ya do, Lark?" Aodhan asked, settling down beside her in the dirt.

"I got myself sold," she said, a little flicker of something like hope rising in her chest. She stared up at Patrion, who had crouched in front of her. She could feel a smile tugging at her lips. "To the arena."

She waited for the joy to spread over the Gaul's face, for him to realize what she'd said. When he only hung his head down, his long hair dangling to his knees, something in her deadened.

"Little bird might find her way to my net yet!" Cetius said, what little belly he had shaking with laughter.

"Why would you do that?" Netruis asked. He stood across the room, a shattered look on his face. "Why...Flee your master, but not to the arena, girl."

"You said I would be something in the arena," she said, something like hurt welling in her. She stomped it viciously. "You all say that freedom lies in the arena. You can die there."

"We will die there," Patrion said, finally looking up at her. "We all will die there. We will fight each day until it happens, and when that time comes, we will embrace it like a lover. But, Lark, you can't know what that does...You can't..." He sighed, sat back on his butt in the dirt and stared at her as if he'd never seen her before.

"Best get'yer sleep, girl," Aodhan said from beside her. He laid his arm heavily along her shoulders, tugging her into his side in a fatherly gesture that she'd thought him incapable of. "You'll go to sale in the morning, and that...will be more than you're ready for."

 **-The Building of a Nest-**

The period of time between first sale into the study of becoming a gladiatorix and when she would be bought was known as The Selection. There were ten women put forth, two of which too old to do more than lift the sword in defense like a shield. They would die at their testing.

Lark was young and had the benefit of months of half-training in the cells below Maggoria's estate, and still her muscles ached each day, the Lanister screamed murder upon them all, and she failed more than she was successful in their drills. She did all of these things, and yet, it was she that excelled the most. Her name that was called when their trainer gave reprieve and longer breaks to the woman that did the best.

She was all of that, and still, she might die at the testing. On their first day in the arena, the slave master had them all bound in shackles and marched into the bowels of the arena, where they were to watch a testing from behind one of the gates.

"The men fight one of the proven gladiators," Xerxa whispered from Lark's elbow. Xerxa was a young thing, only about fifteen, but she was larger than most of them, more muscled. She was dark skinned and eyed, and in the auction, they called her exotic. Lark wondered at how the title was supposed to improve her skills in the arena, but when it was uttered, everyone seemed to take notice. In the auction, they called Lark spirited and of horse lords. She supposed they all had their titles.

"Do you think we'll fight one of the gladiatorix?" Alma was a soft hearted woman, old and wrinkled and had been taken as spoils of war until she could no longer serve. She would not survive the testing, even if it was just holding off a proven gladiatorix.

"I hear an animal," Lark said, effectively silencing the rest. The woman standing in the arena took a few steps backward, already on the defensive as it brought her well into their view. In a few seconds, Lark saw what had her on the run. A large creature, furred and on all fours, it's shoulder as high as her own, prowled forward, roaring out of a mouth with four fangs.

"A bear," Alma said softly. "We're to fight a bear." Lark had never seen the creature before, but as it came forward at the gladiatorix it rose up on its hind legs, swiping with its front. The claws raked the woman across the shoulder, splitting her to the bone. The woman cried out and dropped her light shield. In a few seconds, the woman was dead, spilling her intestines into the dirt with her blood as the bear nosed around in the wounds it had torn in her abdomen.

"We have to fight a bear," Xerxa said, eyes unblinking as she watched the creature eat its fill of delicate organs and flesh.

"Then we'll learn to fight a bear," Lark said, turning away from the sight. It wouldn't do to watch now. Earlier, when the creature had been fighting, showing its strengths, that was the time to watch. Now, with no opponent and no need to defend itself, studying the creature would only dishearten.

Lark listened at night as the women spoke about their chosen weapons, their plan for their testing, all of everything in between. She had few friends here, amongst the women. Some didn't see it for what it was, her silence.

Some, like sweet Alma, didn't understand that should they all pass the testing, should they survive, that they'd be fighting each other soon enough. Then where would they be, having discussed their own strengths and weaknesses amongst themselves. But Lark listened. Alma would be a Sagittarius, shooting arrows from the back of a horse. It fit her well, and Lark had to admit that the woman was a sure aim, but her horse was uneasy beneath her, wouldn't listen to the guide of her knees, and a Sagittarius needed both arms to draw the bow. To kill the woman, she'd spook the horse.

Xerxa had chosen a spear as her weapon and the Romans had called her Velites. They'd given her a throwing thong, and she had taken to the dual weapons well, though she often threw too soon and ended up with just her spear, which was easily dodged by someone quick on their feet. Xerxa would pass the testing, Lark was nearly sure. The bear had no defense against the spear, and while Lark was hesitant to admit it, the woman was skilled.

As was the second youngest among them, Ygern, a strong Gaul but still small. Ygern was to be as Patrion, wielding two blades and reigning down blood like a war goddess. She was beautiful and moldable, still young enough to be manipulated into compliance. She was obedient, and she'd been hand picked already by a wealthy Lanister to be his gladiatorix of choice. Should it look like she was failing the testing, his word was to intervene, not to let her be marred with scar so young.

Lark pitied her.

In the end, her Lanister's protection would mean her unreadiness, her death.

Lark took their whispered worries to her heart, to her mind, thought through their lives and their deaths in the arena, and as she stood in front of a bear, the sand beneath her feet and a wickedly sharp, curved blade in hand, helmet on her head and a small shield on her arm, she welcomed death, should it come on the edge of the bear's claw. She could lay down in the sand, await her death, but the edge in her, that great thing that had been building since she clawed out the eye of a Roman, would not show its belly.

She wouldn't. But the bear would.

In the sand, she stared down the creature, mind racing over the lessons they'd had, the fights and the times they'd been allowed to watch a testing. Alma had already come before her, and if Lark thought on it took long, she might still see the blood just a few feet to her left, where the woman had taken her last breaths. Focus was a powerful thing, one that she would need to learn between this breath and the next, as the great animal roared at her, spurred onward by three gladiatorix at his back, all propelling him forward with a spear.

Like before, the beast ran forward a few feet and in the last few feet, raised up on its haunches. All the others had kept their distance, relied on their weapon's range to save them. With the small shield on her arm, Lark screamed her family's battle cry, ducked her head and charged, rolling under the creature's first swipe of its paw and coming up, slicing the curved blade through thick fur and hide, low on it's belly.

it gave a hurt noise, dropping to all fours and swiping at her without grace.

It roared and rumbled, taking little, aching steps around to watch her until finally, with its blood spilling into the sand, it lay on it's side.

 _"I'll not have y'die because you didn't know to press!"_ Aodhan's words were hot in her mind as she circled around the creature, quick as a snake and swiped the blade across its throat. She was rewarded with a firm swipe that sent her stumbling and bloodied her hip, but she kept her life.

Later, that night, as she was stitched and bathed and taken to the cells of those that had passed the testing, she was given more honors, or so the Romans dubbed them. Her wooden shield was replaced with light weight metal, rudimentary and unadorned. Her blade was of better quality, and last, she was given a helmet, the front adorned with a griffin rampant. It was the symbol of Nemesis, the Roman goddess of revenge, and as Lark sat in her cell, awaiting purchase and staring down at the helm, she could not have picked a more appropriate visage. Thraex, they called those that found with the curved blade and small shield.

Lark, the crowd would scream for the next fifteen years.


	3. The Lark and the Lion

**Chapter Three: The Lark and the Lion**

Lark felt a thrill in her throat, egging her onward, toward the day. Today would be a truly great day. Today...well, today she was going to be free.

The guards had been by the night before, telling her of her draw, of the announcement of the battle between two legends of the arena.

 _"Appeal to the crowd, Lark," Gregorius said, one hand against the cage as though he wanted to open it, set her free. He'd been one of her guards since she'd come into the ownership of her current Dominus, back before she'd been known as the Lark. She couldn't remember what they'd called her before Maggoria and her Sarmatian whore, back before she'd known what to do with a blade._

 _"I've never asked anyone to save me," she said. "If the Lion kills me, then he kills me. It will be past time."_

 _"A man isn't meant to fight a woman in the arena," Antarion said, face creased in obvious dislike. Antarion had been a guard for many years before Lykopis had been born, and now, he held his position in name only. Rarely was he seen in full armor, but his son often did his work for him. In true Roman fashion, he'd named his son after himself, and the boy had taken to Lark back when he was still watching the games form the stands in the arena and not from the tunnels below._

 _"I've fought men before, Antarion. I'll live to fight men again, or I will die in the arena. My freedom comes for me."_

 _"You don't know what you're talking about," Antarion snapped, wrapping hard against the bars once with his fist before stalking away into the darkness._

 _"There are ways to win the crowd, win the arena," Gregorious said once Antarion was out of sigh. "Win your rudis."_

 _"The Dominus has no love for me other than what I bring him in coin. I have no love of him to beg for it. The crowd has always loved me, but they love me in the arena. Killing. Being killed. It doesn't matter. Go home, Gregorius. Kiss your wife and see your son grow. Tomorrow, watch me from the tunnels, and no matter whose blood soaks into the sand, celebrate the victory."_

Lark stood behind the gate, Gregarius and Antarion flanking her, staring with sad eyes out into the sunlight. Her heart beat in her throat, promising war, blood...promising freedom. The light weight shield against her arm felt as it always did, an extension of herself, the curved blade in hand as if another finger. Readiness was not a concern, but something itched at the back of her mind that never had before. Something would change today, something would make it a truly great day.

"On this day, on this day, friends, we have a true spectacle!" The orator could be heard even down in the tunnels, and the deafening roar of the crowd followed it after half a breath. "The Lark-" Her gate opened, and she stepped through. The crowd screamed. A great day. One last good showing. "and the Lion!"

Lark spun on her heel, turning toward the center of the arena, where another set of doors opened. From the darkness, the man known as the Lion came. He was a large man, probably one of the largest that the arena had seen in years, with his namesake's mane hanging around his neck. He opted for a heavy axe instead of a blade, and a round shield, both far heavier than Lark's own weapons. It mattered little. A slight blade could end a life. A heavy one could cause a misstep. The Lion was a big man, though, and Lark had seen him in combat before.

The crowd screamed their joy at his presence, just as they had welcomed her.

A split crowd. A split decision. A truly great day.

Lark turned away from the Lion, raised her sword and waited. A silence fell over the crowd, and in that silence, she let the cry of her people rip from her throat. She turned in a wide circle, bringing her blade up for the crowd to see. It echoed her war cry back at her, pleased with her offering. Across the arena, the Lion screamed his own war cry, one that wasn't Sarmatian, wasn't Roxolani, but it was familiar to her as she ran at him.

The Lion took two hulking steps forward, raising his shield against her blade and bringing the axe around in a sweep waist high. Lark ducked under it, rolled forward, between his legs, and just missed tripping him up. By the time she'd rolled to her feet, he was on her, swinging his shield and axe both as weapons. She managed to dodge the axe time and time again, but the shield battered at her arms and shoulders, across her back and chest.

Again and again he swung, and Lark danced in and out of range, bringing her blade up quickly, making small, insignificant hits in the openings he allowed. Finally, he lunged too far, and Lark slipped along his outstretched arm, turning away from a blow from his shield and raked her blade along his chest. The crowd roared even as she danced away, unhappy with her blow and the knee he'd brought up last minute to knock the wind from her lungs.

She kept out of his reach as she regained her breath, on the run for the first time in years. Blood sang in her ears. A challenge. Possible freedom. A truly great day. The thrill distracted her, and she came forward without thought. In the next moment, the sharp edge of the axe was cracking through her shield, carrying her to the ground and pinning her there. Her breath left her yet again, and dazed, she stared up at the sky.

Clear. Blue.

A bird soared high overhead from one end of the arena to the other, and as it gave a great flap to it's wings, she was startled back to the reality of the sand. Lion's head was up, his axe poised overhead. The orator had spoken. She was to die. Still on her back with her blade at her fingertips, rage flooded her.

She was Lark.

She was war.

She walked with Nemesis.

She was not ready to die.

A flare of something lanced through her like fire, sparking her nerves and propelling her onward. In a moment, the blade was in her hand and she was lurching forward, using the Lion's thigh as leverage to pull herself up and bury the blade into flesh and organs. Blood splattered out, misting her face and dropping thickly against her arms. He fell forward, and she rolled clear of him in time to not be pinned by his body.

Painted red, she smiled up at the sunlight. Another day. Another great day, she might die. Today was not so great.

"Do you have no honor?" the orator shouted, and the crowd fell silent at his wrath. "You lay beaten, and yet you refuse to die with honor!" What was death with honor? Lark felt the weight of the arena watching her, felt the warmth of Lion's blood on her skin. To lay there and die would have been without honor. To give up without the effort.

A murmur ripped through the crowd, some shouting for her death, others her war cry. She stood as the gates opened on either side of her. The round shield was useless, shattered by Lion's last strike, but the sword in her hand would still serve. None came for several long minutes until finally, the guard filed out into the arena, flanking her at either side, their swords in hand. Gregorius and Antarion among them, Lark tipped her head to the sky and took a breath.

A truly great day after all, perhaps the greatest of all days. She would not see either guard killed for her life, for something she wanted taken. She slackened her grip on the blade, eyes still watching that circling bird of prey.

"Hault!" the orator shouted into the arena, both hands held toward the heavens. Lark glared at him darkly out of one eye. Slowly, his thumbs turned upward, and the guards slipped back into the shadow of the tunnels. Rage flared low in her belly. She'd never needed saving before, never asked for reprieve. She turned toward the orator. "You have been spared the arena!"

The words struck her sternum like a shield blow, sending the air from her lungs and making her knees weak. Spared the arena meant freedom. A rudius. A name. The crowd screamed out, some in joy, others in anger at losing one of their bloody gladiators. She nodded once, wishing she had the strength to throw her blade far enough to lodge in the orator's chest, and disappeared into the darkness beneath the Colosseum.

Gregorius and Antarion met her at the gate, smiles on their faces. She ignored their congratulations, their enthusiasm. Nothing in the world was free, and she'd not yet paid for her freedom. As was ceremony, they lead her to her cell for the last time, letting her strip off her armor and the blood of the sand. Bathed and in the clothes she'd been given for time between fights, she waited her wooden sword, her rudius.

The orator came later with one of the Roman Bishops, a pompous man that Lark had seen from time to time in the orator's box.

"Lark! You bloody creature," the Bishop said, holding his hands out to her through the cage bars as if he would embrace her. She did not rise from her seat against the wall, she simply stared at him, at the ignorance in him. She could have crossed the cage in a second, pulled his arms in close enough to reach his head, snap his neck, end his life.

"You would do well to thank the Bishop," the orator said, voice clipped. Still angry. Lark smiled at him, aware that it made the man uncomfortable. The orator had been down many times over the years, and each time he fled her smile. "It is on his favor that you were spared death ad gladium in favor of servitude of a Roman Commander."

Her blood froze. If there was freedom offered, it surely had been snatched in that moment. Service to a Roman. Service to another commander that stole someone from their home, killed indiscriminately.

"I will not serve!" she shouted, taking a step forward. As she did, the Bishop flinched backward, stumbling over the trail of his robe and nearly falling to the ground.

"You will serve!" the Bishop said, righting himself. "You will serve Commander Artorius Castus and his knights." He turned away from her to the orator. "See her prepared in the morning and brought to the stables by sun up."

They left her in her cell, more angry than she'd been in years.

-The Lion and the Lark-

"Your new slave," the Bishop said, arms held out to indicate her in a grand gesture. Uncomfortable on her knees with her day clothes stolen from her and forced into strips of cloth that some of the gladiatorix wore to win the crowd, she glared up at the man, willing him to step just a bit closer. Her shoulders ached, and the heavy feel of chains against the metal collar was unmistakable. Gregorius and Antarion-the younger-held either length, keeping the chain taught enough that if she moved, it would cut off her air. They were intelligent, fair, and she'd trained them well through the years with her disobedience. She shifted experimentally, checking the bar that bound her ankles apart carefully. It would hold.

The Bishop prowled around her, eyes trying to eat up exposed skin. Gregorius shifted not only once but twice to block the Bishop's view of her flesh. She resolved to not cause the man any more trouble until she left Rome. The man the Bishop declared her new Dominus was a tall man, with a strong Roman jaw and intelligent grey eyes. His men had been in earlier, when they'd brought her in. One was sharp eyed, slight but strong with Sarmatian tribal tattoos on his cheeks. The other was tall, bald and silent, build like Lion had been.

"Why is she thus bound?" the man asked. Lark could feel Gregorius and Antarion's eyes on her at that. She fought down a smirk at their glaze and glared up at the man that would call her slave.

"Lark is a bloody creature," the Bishop said. He made a gesture behind her back that had his own guards taking over her chains. She tried to hide the plan forming in her mind, the way that the chain started to sag on just one side.

"Hold her tightly," Gregorius cautioned. One of the men listened, the other did not. As the chain loosened to the point where it dipped below her shoulder, sagging nearly to the dirt, she caught the quick glance of Gregarius and Antarion. She gave them a small smile before pivoting on her knee, snatching the loose chain with her bound hands behind her back and rolling forward, forcing the guard to the dirt. She rolled backward, ignoring the pain in her hands at the movement, and pinning him to the ground with a knee again this throat.

His hands scrabbled at her skin, mind shut down in panic.

"Do you see?" the Bishop asked, making no move to help his guard. Gregarius and Antarion gripped her firmly by her shoulders and pulled her backward, planting her into the dirt with more force than they normally used with her. Her wrists ached at being pinned beneath her weight.

"Can't behave for five minutes?" Antarion asked, though there was a smile on his lips as she stared up at him.

"Is it my fault he couldn't listen?" she asked. Vaguely, Lark heard the tattooed knight swear and disappear from the stable. Good, she thought, as she lay in the dirt. Let them worry. "Should have killed me in the arena." And they should have. At least, ad gladium, she'd have had her freedom.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Gregarius said sternly, easing her up off of her shoulders.

"How many do I have to kill before I know about death?" she asked, too angry to lash out at the slack chains until they once again had them in hand. Germanus stood in front of her in the next moment, glaring down at her with a riding crop in hand. She smiled up at him, willing him to lash out. It would be nothing but a memory from another time, when she stood silent and took the lash.

"Insolent bitch," Germanus breathed and brought the crop across her face, forcing her head to the side. The sharp taste of blood bloomed along her tongue, and Lark smiled up at them, teeth bared and pink. "You will pay for this far more than I have," Germanus said to Arthur as he turned back to him.

"That I do not doubt, Bishop."

"Perhaps you should learn to beat the dog before you get out on the road with it. I know you have a soft heart for such beasts." Germans held out the riding crop, and as Arthur hesitated, Lark urged him to take it. She wanted him to grip the weapon, lash out at her as Maggoria did or even as those that had trained her in the years since.

The big man put at end to her silent will as he reached out and took the crop, placing himself between Germanus and Arthur, as if a slave had such a place.

"Arthur would not dirty his hands. Her punishment will fall to me," the big man said. Lark knew it to be true. She'd seen such things in the past. Some slave owners won the loyalty of their brood by never personally putting them to pain. Lark would not be such a creature won. "And you are so masterful at it, I doubt she would think to disobey again so soon."

Lark had to give the man that he'd put the Bishop on his heels. Angry at being denied his showing, the holy man puffed and adjusted his robes, but he couldn't say anything with the compliment the slave had slipped in.

"Then take the beast," Germanus ordered. Anterion and Gregarius passed off her bindings to the two men that flanked Arthur. They held her firmly, but not unkindly, not tugging or making her lose her balance.

"You're ready to leave?" Arthur asked his men, as though their thoughts mattered. Lark watched as both men looked to their own horses, packed and ready to make leave. "Get her a horse."

"You put her on horse, and she will be gone," Germanus said, face turning red in annoyance.

"Then she will be gone," Arthur agreed. "After all, she is mind to do with as I wish." The words made any good will left in her heart whither and die. Lark would hate this man, as she had hated all those that came before him.

"I belong to no one," she hissed, pulling at her bindings to check for weakness. When she found none there, she only raged further. "Kill me, Roman, or you will regret it for the rest of your numbered days." Arthur considered her a moment, and simply nodded, turning to his horse.

"Her her a horse. Bind her down." Lark thrashed against the two men that lead her to her feet and toward a stall door. The sweet ring of metal from a sheath was the last thing she heard before something struck her head and darkness reigned.

-The Lion and the Lark-

Lark feigned sleep as long as she could as the horse swayed beneath her. Her legs had long since gone numb, and her arms, bound behind her back, were no better. The easy movement of the beast kept her calm longer than she'd have liked, but soon her unease drew attention.

"Untie her," Arthur said, his voice strong. As if his word had gone to the horses themselves, they ceased their slow walk. "We'll rest the horses."

The blindfold that had been settled over her eyes was taken away suddenly, and the harsh light of day made her blind for several long minutes. When she finally blinked her eyes clear, the sharp eyed man looked down at her.

"You will listen," he murmured, voice hard. "I am going to untag you, and unbind your legs from the saddle. You will not kick me. You will not bite me." He said everything as if it were fact, as if he knew that it would be instantly obeyed. It was equal parts impressive and maddening that he thought he could control her with words.

She relaxed her face, forcing it into the half-dull, half-serene look of a warrior on the battlefield. The gag went first, and she worked her tongue along her teeth, grateful for the freedom, if only for a moment. The moment he freed her second leg from the stirrup and binding, she rolled sideways, off the far side of the horse and took two stuttering steps before her jellied legs rebelled. She slumped to the ground, glaring heatedly at the stinging limbs, as if they'd offended far more than they had.

The sharp eyed man came around the horse and crouched in front of her.

"You will not run," he said simply, voice calm as if he were talking to her horse or a stray cat. "You will listen to Arthur, and you will behave yourself."

"And you will get away from me before I cut your cock off and stuff it up your ass," she threatened, but he only quirked the corner of his mouth at her. She had to admit that the threat was just a threat. Her hands were still bound, her legs would not be of use for some time yet, and she was without a weapon.

"Hostility will get you killed," the other man said, drawing her attention away from the one that still smirked at her. Her eyes flickered between them, qualifying the ease with which they held themselves, the confidence of their backs. She wondered, for a moment, if she'd found men that could kill her.

Perhaps, there was one great day awaiting her yet.

"My name is Arthur Castus," the commander said. "You will accompany me until we get back to Briton." Lark's heart rebelled at more orders, yet more demands of her. And yet such was her life still. "From there, I don't care where you go, but I will not leave you out where the Romans can take you back." Take her back? She nearly laughed at that. She had gone quietly once, many years ago, before she knew how to defend herself. It would not happen again.

"What power do you have, Arthur Castus, with which you claim my life? Gold? Coins that you earned by trading other slaves?"

"I offer you freedom, and you do nothing but spit like a viper," he said, voice coloring with annoyance. Lark felt something almost like pleasure curl in her stomach at that.

"My freedom was offered!" she shouted at him, lunging forward on her burning legs only to be caught around the shoulder and forced back down. "I had it!" The notion that it had been there, in the arena, at the hands of Roman guards as she killed as many as she could...her last freedom had been there, and this man...this Roman had taken it all.

"Your death was offered, girl. Arthur saved your life," the third man said, and she looked at him through a predator's eyes, through the eyes of the gladiatorix of the arena. She'd seen men like him how many times? Aodhan had looked like that, before... Something thick and dark rose in her throat, spat out on her tongue.

"And you?" she asked, fixing him with the look she'd learned made even men fear her. "Has he saved your life? Stolen your one last freedom?" The big man started, staring at her for a long while before turning back to see to the horses. She watched him go with a grim satisfaction before turnign back to Arthur, who had crouched down in front of her, one hand on the ground as if the world had moved from under him.

She felt guilty for a moment—a very brief moment—as he stared after his man.

"Don't tell me you couldn't tell," she said. "I don't know him, and even I can tell that man wants to die."

"You know nothing," the sharp-eyed man said, cuffing her ankle as if he would a misbehaving child.

"I have given you my name," Arthur said, as he shook himself free from whatever darkness that had claimed his mind. "I would ask yours, if we are to travel together until Briton."

"Call me Lark, for that is who you bought."

"I bought no one," Arthur countered, voice hard, and for a moment, she almost believed his lies. "I do not travel with people whose names I do not know."

"Then you can't travel with me," she countered. He had the look of a determined man, and she went cold at her heart. She had no name to give him, even if she'd wanted to.

"Do you remember your name?" the sharp-eyed man asked her. The little sliver of cold blistered outward, splintering and freezing her still for too long.

"You don't remember your name," Arthur said, voice too close to sympathy.

"Lark was the name they gave me when they sold me to the arena. Lark is who lived in the sand. Whoever I was before is dead, Arthur Castus, under the heel of your Roman Empire. I have been the Lark, Roxolani, Morrigan. Your people, Roman, your people called me slave. Take your pick because any name will be more true than my own."

She had hoped that her anger would unsettle him, propel him away from her and keep him that way. Instead, he settled onto the grass, that soft look still on his face.

"This is Tristram," Arthur said, pointing to the dark-eyed man beside her. "That is Dagonet. I was not lying for your benefit. When we get to Briton, you will be free to do what you will. If you leave my company now, Rome's hands will follow you. You will find yourself alive in a dungeon, for the rest of your days. Follow me, willingly, and perhaps, when you remember your name, you'll have someone to tell it to."

She considered him a moment before nodding.

"Fine enough," she said. "A deal, then? Give me my hands, and I won't disappear. I won't kill your men, and if you take this collar from around my neck, I will ignore that your man said he was going to be taking flesh from my bones."

"And you will behave," Tristram said easily, as if he could make her obey. Judging from his confidence, he might have thought himself man enough to try. The boredom to his tone infuriated her, and she sat in the dirt, quietly vowing to make him use something more than that bored tone.

"The women, they don't much care for you, do they?" she asked, hoping for a flash of pain or some remembered slight to rise in his eyes. Almost immediately, Arthur had thrown his head back in laughter, baring his throat. It would be easy, even bound, to lung forward and teach the man that humans may have forgotten they were gifted weapons, but that some still bared teeth for more than smiles.

"No, but the wolves don't mind his smell overmuch," Dagonet said, and there was a smile on his lips and his voice that was unsettling. Lark was sure the man might light the entire world, if only he had a reason to smile more often. It nearly made her sick. Arthur make a choking noise, and in a second, Tristram was up and stalking toward Dagonet, taking his own horse beyond the next rise.

Lark watched him go, recognizing the sullen retreat for what it was, a warrior licking his wounds.

"I didn't..." She bit into her tongue viciously, ignoring the sharp tang of blood. "If he can't deal with the consequences of being a domaneering ass, he shouldn't act the part."

"You didn't hurt him," Arthur said, his eyes settling on her. "He's uncomfortable and not admitting his own feelings at the moment." He rose, rubbing at his knees like an old man. He pulled a dagger from his side and cut her hands free. She felt the blade slip against the outside of her wrist, and as the rope gave way, she twisted, catching the blade in her palm and wretching it free from his hands. Blood pooled and ran between her fingers as she flipped the weapon and brought the blade up and back.

"Remember, Arthur Castus, that while you own my life, I owned yours, right now." She looked back over her shoulder at the commander, who swallowed against the tip of the blade. "For the breadth of a breath." She opened her palm, letting the dagger and blood fall to the ground. Arthur relaxed and dropped the rope that had bound her wrists.

"Keep it," Arthur said, eyes locked on the blade. "Here." He bent and picked it up, handing it back to her, handle out.

"You don't want me armed," she said, standing.

"I don't want you useless should we need you," Arthur countered. "You've already pledged not to kill me men. Why should I fear you?"

"I swore not to kill your men; I was mute on the subject of your life," she said.

"Go on, kill me then," he offered, holding his arms out wide. "You're armed, and if you're quick enough, you could get to your horse before Dagonet could kill you. Of course, Tristram could kill you no matter how far you'd gotten before he knocked an arrow."

"Oh, I don't know," she said, holding the handle of the dagger out to him. "Your guard dog seems to be watching me close enough. I think he could get that war hammer off the ground in time to cave my skull in."

"I said if you're quick enough," Arthur said, and the little smile on his mouth make Lark want to take the dagger and reshape his face. Arthur took it before she could act on the anger. "Best remove temptation."

"Best," she echoed and sat back down. Tristram had built up a fire, and Dagonet had settled the horses down into the grass..

They rested the horses in silence, the three men relishing in their release from Rome and Lark trying to decide if she liked the feel of free hands and feet or if the phantom ache against her wrists and ankles was because she missed the familiar. Her neck ached as she bent forward to take an offered piece of bread, and she knew the answer.

No, she did not miss it. The ropes chaffed far more deeply than her skin.

"You bleed," Dagonet said, eyeing her critically.

"Everyone bleeds, or did you think you were a god?" she asked, glaring up at him. Even seated, he was tall enough to make her look up at him. His perpetual frown reminded her of Aodhan as he glared down at her. Except Aodhan was gone. He'd been gone.

 _The crowd roared as the Celt stepped out onto the sand, his executioner's blade hanging from a hand. Lark watched from beneath the arena. Her own fight had gone well, and she'd spent the better part of the day watching the games. She'd never missed one of Aodhan's fights, never forgotten her first teacher, her first instructor._

 _Aodhan never saw to the crowd's pleasure, never postured for them or considered them. What he did was punish those the crowd hated, and he did it screaming._

 _Three chained men were marched naked into the arena, their skinny little limbs shaking from the weight of their fate. The orator spoke on their sins, and Lark ignored them. Instead, she watched the Celt. Normally, Aodhan considered the men that he was to execute more readily, but today, he stared up at the orator as if the man held all answers._

 _The normal pride in his back was gone, replaced with a resolved look in his eye. Lark watched him as the orator shouted out for the death of the three men. Aodhan turned away from the orator then, away from the men and looked to the door across from him, where his brothers stood, where Patrion and Natrius stood watching before finally looking over to her._

 _The old Celt raised his executioner's blade, flipped it with a flare he rarely used, screaming as he turned back toward the three men. One stumbled back, eyes wide with terror, piss running down to wet the sand. The other two held their ground, jaws set in preparation for the afterlife._

 _The blade spun one final time, came down and around, buried deep in flesh._

 _Lark heard the crowd silent for the first time in her life. Aodhan stood on shaking legs, his own blade buried deep in his chest. Lark heard a shout from across the arena as Aodhan fell to his knees, staring stubbornly up at the orator's box._

 _Lark did not scream out. She did not mourn. For the first time in her life, she knew death as something more than a punishment. She knew death as freedom._

"No, you're bleeding," Dagonet said, startling her from the past. She knew. How could she not know? The game she'd played with the Roman guards in the stable hadn't been without pain, and her pathetic escape attempt had ripped open any scabbing around her neck. Blood had soaked through the rope and rolled down her back and chest.

Dagonet stood, pulling a dagger from his boot and stepping toward her. She shifted sideways, attempting to put more distance between herself and the big man. "Be still," he chided as he pushed the tangled mess of her hair over her shoulder so he could see.

The blade was cool as it slipped between her skin and the rope. The bloodied constraint ripped away, taking little pieces of scab and skin with it as it went.

"How long as that been on you?" Arthur asked, eyeing the strip of tortured flesh that run around her throat.

"How long was I in the arena?" she asked. They'd placed it after she'd been bought by her Dominus, and with each misbehavior, it had tightened in retribution. The question sparked the idea of time in her mind, of a duration spent on the sand. Dagonet rubbed a gritty paste into the wound, stinging and raw. Even with the biting pain from rough fingers and the ache from torn skin, she felt better.

Nothing to hold her. Nothing to mark her a slave. Perhaps Arthur had been honest with her. Perhaps he'd...

"Did Dominus...did he tell you how long I'd been there?" she asked. The Roman word for master felt heavy on her tongue, too scripted. In the arena, failure to address your Dominus as such resulted in starvation, and while she'd not ever bowed a knee to Maggoria, she'd been brought to heel quickly enough by her Dominus.

He'd been an older man, straight backed and wrinkled, Roman to his core but fair. Rebellion was handled with quick pain and quicker dismissal. A cane against the back was the most common punishment, and Lark felt it many times. Still, despite his holding her collar, she couldn't help a grudging respect for the man. He was old, even by Roman standards, and he still ran his house without the embarrassing displays of Maggoria's house. There was no screaming or posturing, no abuse of his slaves for his own failure.

Unless disrespect was offered. Lark knew the pain that failing to respect her Dominus brought. She had no desire to feel it again, but the word was too heavy on her tongue.

"No, but Bishop Germanus mentioned some fourteen years," Arthur said, and she nodded. It had felt longer, but surely she wasn't older than forty, and thirty felt right. She was thirty years old. They sat there longer than they'd planned, and as the sun started to disappear over a rise, Arthur ordered a halt to their progress for the day.

Tristram kept on with his mare, disappearing into the failing light.

"Where does he go?" Lark asked, uneasy at the disappearance. In the dark, men could appear like wraiths. There had been a games in the dark of night once as punishment for a poor showing. As she dismounted, she wondered at the feeling in her belly.

"Scouting," Dagonet said, turning from her to start a fire. "You are safe. Tristram will see anything coming from long off."

"And who watches your scout?" she asked but was ignored. It was odd, wondering after the safety of anyone other than herself. It had been years since Aodhan's suicide, and everyone else in her life was as gone as he was. Cetius was no loss, especially at Netius's brawling fists. It was the blade that severed Netrius's neck a moment later that she mourned. Pation's leaving wasn't to be mourned, not with the wooden rudius in his hand, not with his freedom bought and paid for with his handsome smiles to the crowd and his endless victories on the sand.

Lark hadn't thought after the life of another being in years, and now sitting in the dark as Dagonet started a fire, her sharp eyes watched the darkness for their scout and for the men around her.

A fire going and their horses unsaddled, Arthur and Dagonet settled to eat from a pack that had come from Rome. Thin strips of salted meat were a delicacy, but Lark had known them before. She quietly took a chunk of bread Arthur offered, but the meat was ignored.

She slept that night without chains supporting her arms. Free to toss and turn in the grass, she found for the first time she had no desire to do were stars overhead, stars she hadn't seen in fourteen years. In the early hours of the morning, when the daybreak chased the last of them away, she rolled over one last time and slept.

-The Lark and the Lion-

Arthur woke the next morning sluggishly, and as he sat up and stood, Lark watched him vomit into the dirt, falling to his knees in the weakness that came with sickness. Lark had watched the scout go in a similar fashion a few minutes prior, and it was only her knowledge of the salted Roman meat that made her smile at the commander as he emptied his stomach contents.

"Tris?" Arthur called, settling back on his knees. "Are you well?"

Tristram grunted from behind Lark, where he lay on his side, dry heaving into the air. "Never trust a Roman," he said once he'd finished. Lark was almost gleeful at that.

"Never trust your own stomach," Lark countered, pleased when Arthur jumped. He'd not seen her standing with the horses brushing out the animal's mane with calloused fingers. "The food is too rich, and when they ride out, they soak the meat in salt. You will not die."

"You knew this?" Arthur asked, holding his rolling stomach.

"Everyone in Rome nows this. It is a trick they played in the arena," she said simply. All Roman soldiers had grown used to the salt on their long rides. It was clear the Commander had been long from mother Rome.

"How long?" Tristram asked.

"The vomiting for a day. You'll be weak another day after." In the arena, they'd given the meat as a false reward. Those that took it and lived through their next bout never again touched food reward passed down by the guards.

"Are you unless?" Dagonet asked as he eased upright, face still heavy from sleep.

"Too much salt in the meat, Lark claims," Arthur said. "Did you not eat?"

Dagonet shook his head. "I do not trust the Romans. I have something that will calm the stomach let me—"

"Tristram is ill as well," Arthur cut in. "If you could make a tea?"

"I will boil water," Dagonet said and moved to his saddle. Lark spent the better part of that day lounging in the sun and laying in the grass, pleased with the feel of it cool against her skin. A few times she'd made comments to Dagonet as he nursed the two men, but mostly, she just relished in what felt a lot like freedom.

The sun long set, and as the stars came out, she felt uneasy. Arthur still slept on, having caught fever during the day. Tristram had woken hours ago, but he only sat sluggishly by the fire, willpower more than anything else keeping him upright.

"Don't look so might not up on your horses," a voice called from the shadow. Lark was on her feet in a moment, back to the fire, ignoring the words that were said but pinpointing the voices in the darkness. At least five voices had spoken before the first came into the light. He was not a large man, not particularly intimidating, and he only held a blade. Tristram was uneasy on his feet a few paces off, and Dagonet stood, his war hammer too far away, tucked into his saddle.

"Girl?" Dagonet called to her as the rest came through the fire. She smirked at him knowing full well the question in his voice. What would she do?

Six in all came into the firelight, all with hand to hand weapons. Lark launched herself at the first man, slipping under a short sword's stroke and snapping her elbow up with her own, shattering the joint and easily taking his blade. Behind her Dagonet had taken out two men already, and Tristram, sluggish as he was, dealt with a fourth.

"Arthur!" the scout's panicked tone made Lark glance at the Commander, still asleep on his bed roll, a man over him, both hands gripping the hilt of a long sword. There was a choice to make, in that moment.

Her body moved before it was made, diving in a roll toward the fire and grabbing one of the burning branches. She brought it up, smashing into the side of the man's head. He crumpled sideways, and she snatched his sword from the air and bought it spinning around to split the last from shoulder to sternum.

Tristram and Dagonet spoke quietly behind her, and she stared down at the sleeping Commander. Unease in her belly, she tossed the brand back into the fire and buried the sword tip into the dirt.

"Arthur?" Tristram called.

"He's fine," Lark said. "No one touched him." Lark watched as Dagonet moved to check on him anyway until he sat back, looking from Tristram to Arthur and back again. In the span of a few seconds, both men were laughing.

"You've lost your minds," Lark said as she bent over one of the corpses. There were things she needed, if she was to survive out here, in this world beyond the sand. They laughed themselves out as she pocketed several gold coins and a dagger.

"Probably," Tristram said.

"We do not loot," Dagonet admonished her once he realized what she was doing. He didn't stop her though, as she strapped a short blade to her calf and bucked another to her hip. She deftly rolled a series of daggers into a bit of leather and tied it up with boot laces. It was easy, this searching, she decided. In the arena, when a brother or sister died in their cell, taking what they had sat far more uneasily in her stomach. She gripped the man by his armpits and drug him into the darkness, away from their camp.

"What are you doing?" Tristram asked as she returned from dragging away another body.

"You want to sleep with the dead?" she asked as she went through another corpse.

"Would not be the first time," Dagonet said. She took another corpse into the darkness, and when she returned, they were still speaking.

"If she wanted to kill us, she'd done it when I was ill," Tristram said.

"Too easy," Lark countered. The last of the men had been drug far enough away for her liking, so she settled to the grass by the fire. "If I'm going to kill you, you'll be awake, well and armed."

"An honorable killed," Dagonet said.

"Isn't that all that separates these men from you?" she asked. "Or is it that you follow Arthur instead of another?" She stared up at the sky, the stars lulling her again. Briton, she supposed, might not be such a terrible place, if it had stars like this and Arthur Castus kept his word.


End file.
